What really makes a good husband

Is this the key to a happy marriage? Photo / 123RF

OPINION:

As Daisy May Cooper is said to be tired of marriage, I'm lucky enough to be in for the trials, tribulations and tedium of the long haul.

Every woman knows it can be difficult to keep the spark of marriage alive. Writer and star of the searingly funny British TV show This Country, Daisy May Cooper managed just two years before reportedly announcing this week she was "tired" of being wed, which seemed a bit premature (her mother-in-law has disputed the claim).

But then most of us are marathon runners rather than sprinters when it comes to relationships. We are fully prepared for the trials, tribulations and tedium of the long haul – predicated on the understanding we get to let off steam (bile) in private, to our girlfriends.

Or in public, on Mumsnet. My word, but there's been a fresh outpouring of vitriol on the forum, which is no longer simply a safe and supportive space for breastfeeding newbies, and more of a virtual covenstead for harpies, crones and nefarious jegging recommendations.

The online thread began with a woman gently listing the little things she would change about her husband, including persuading him to empty his own pockets before his clothes went in the wash. Bless. Her light-hearted gripe triggered a tsunami of grievances among wives and partners.

"Blow your nose more quietly. For the love of god. It's the first sound I hear every morning. A massively exuberant hoot. It is so annoying," wrote one. A bit of a warning signal, but not as cataclysmic as reaching the point where you can't bear the sound of "noisy eating. Stop bloody slurping," vented another Mumsnetter.

"Stop eating like a pig chewing bones, it's absolutely gross," added another, who may or may not have been having a bigamous marriage with the husband of the earlier poster.

Any man deranged enough to log on would doubtless be horrified by the apparent pettiness – because, being a chap, he will be unaware of the subtext lurking beneath "Learn to load the effing dishwasher" and "Do housework. Do washing. Learn to iron. Learn to cook, including making your own lunch."

These complaints in all their predictable nagginess have very little to do with ironing and everything to do with the key phrase: "Be thoughtful of my feelings at least once a week."

I know, right? Why does nobody ever tell you guys this stuff? Blame your mothers. Women, pah!

Normally, I would be the first witch lining up at the hell-broth with my eye of newt and toe of frog, but right this very minute I happen to be deeply in love with my husband. Crazy. But kinda beautiful.

Why? Because my spouse walked into the kitchen this week and utterly three little words that have tilted our relationship, giddily, on its axis.

It's the equivalent of a man – say, Antonio Banderas – passionately seizing you in his arms and dipping you low in a salsa. Not the salsa; that would be quite irritating, because it would spoil your hair. And ruin the salsa.

So what magic formula did my husband alight on? Guess. Can you guess? Oh, alright then: "Your tarp's arrived."

Yes, really. Close your eyes and whisper it, if that helps. It's not often a man says exactly what you need to hear when you need to hear it.

Some background. Last year, we went camping in an East Anglian field without shade during a heatwave, and it was so hot I felt like an extra from Tenko. "If only we had a tarp," I murmured on the brink of oblivion.

This very weekend, we are going camping again – and I have proof that my husband actually listened way back then, and not only listened but actually remembered, and not only remembered but actually clicked onto Amazon and bought me a tarp, with money from our joint account, to shield me from the sun. Or, given the forecast, the rain.

Truly, I have never wanted the man, possibly any man (lo siento, Antonio) more.

If that sounds mad, you probably aren't married. You are at the "Another new perfume? How lovely!" stage rather than the "Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey, it makes me smell like the New Look changing rooms, please tell me you kept the receipt" point of no return.

A girlfriend admits (sotto voce) that she knew her now husband was a keeper after their first night together, when he woke up, observed her sink was broken and offered to mend it.

"He got up, went out to his car and brought in a long wrench that was in the boot and sorted it then and there," she swoons, many years and two strapping sons later. I very much hope they watch and conclude that keeping any woman happy is all about the follow-through.

Speaking of which, in the wake of her Fifty Shades of Grey success, writer EL James observed – rather treacherously, I feel, given the amount of moolah her endlessly silly BDSM earned her – that women are less impressed with a man who can rustle up a bondage reef knot faster than you can say Captain Pugwash than one who demonstrates his devotion by putting the bins out.

Both is obviously the ideal; marriage is all about give and take, folks. In truth, the reason why a great many women across the planet swooned over Christian Grey was because the eponymous billionaire didn't merely buy a top-of-the-range computer for his young lover, but sent a man round to install it and, while he was at it, sort out her email, too.

Now that is worth a saucy wooden paddle on the bottom. Definitely. Or at least a free pass on loading the effing dishwasher. Men seldom grasp that it's not about going the extra mile. A little thought, dressed up as thoughtfulness, extends a very long way.

Me, I'll be heading to the New Forest tomorrow channelling Elizabeth Taylor's gorgeous Cleopatra carried inside a carpet for Richard Burton's heroic Antony.

And I fully predict that as I'm sensuously unfurled from my sticky plastic tarp, my husband will gaze down and have just one thing on his mind: "What have you done with the poles?"

What can I say? Other than no man gets it right every time.